


Feeling

by MakzwehlEdison



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakzwehlEdison/pseuds/MakzwehlEdison
Summary: Commissioned work for @Aries_2256 on Twitter. If you’d like to commission a personalized backstory, search GoonBuilds on ko-fi!
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Feeling

(Letter taken from the estate of Reginald P. Caldwell, Esq. in regards to Case 11X3)

Reginald, 

You have asked how I am. 

How do you feel like you are?

Feeling is such an interesting concept that is constantly taken for granted. Go ahead. Touch something, Reginald. 

What did it feel like? Can you describe it to me?

Touch yourself. No— not like that. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. I don’t really care. The part of you that did the touching, and the part of you that did the feeling… how AWARE are you, of the difference between those parts?

I can still touch. I can pick up a pen, dip it into an inkwell, and write information onto paper. I can pick up the oil can to ensure that my joints continue to function at maximum performance. I can take a human skull into my hand and dig my fingers into the eye sockets until I have cleared them of organic matter. 

I remember what it was like to feel. I remember hot and cold. I remember going down to the lake near my parent’s summer home to jump in and feel the WHOOOSHHH of bone-chilling water on my skin as the breath was forced out of me. I remember exhilaration. I remember the night Marianne and I were first intimate; warmth, love, passion. I remember feeling alive, instead of merely existing. 

I can’t feel anymore. I still remember the processes of “feeling” enough to know that, as you’re reading this, you may feel things as well. I do not miss feeling. I think, to miss feeling would, in and of itself BE a feeling. Terribly inefficient. I digress.

How am I?

I’m afraid I must purposefully misunderstand your intent, Reginald. To define how I am within the context of your letter… Would be to philosophically debate the definition of “am” in a way that I am afraid would be— tiresome.

Now, focusing on the foremost worse in your question (as I assume you are unaware), I shall tell you HOW *I* am. Or, how I came to be, as it were:

I remember the feeling of dread shared between Marianne and I when the clerics told me the disease/curse/affliction I had was incurable. I remember the look on her face and I do remember how it felt to have my heart shatter from within (though it still beats in this cold chest of mine, I’ll have you know, Reginald). I remember the months of declining health, the bed sores, the fitful months devoid of peaceful sleep, and the desperation when our finances came to a tipping point. I remember hearing her cry when the bank foreclosed on our house when we had to choose treatment over a roof. Have you ever had to make that choice, Reginald? No. It’s always been provided for you over quite the lifetime; hasn't it, friend?

Why, I remember most clearly the day she took her life, Reginald. How funny it is— and this must be objective, as I do not FEEL the humor in it— to remember my own fitful squeals of anguish when I found her, lying there in our marriage bed the day before the bankers were to come repossess the home we’d made. It’s not a human sound one makes when he stumbles upon a sight such as that, Reginald. It’s more akin to the painful yelp of a dog that was just too slow for the carriage wheel. But I bore you with the details, Reginald. I remember boredom. 

A few other things I remember, Reginald. I remember the man (an esteemed magist) ho picked me up off the street and promised me a cure for this curse. I remember the pain of the process that was required to put me in this body. I remember the scrying spell he performed as one last favor for me before I became his tinkered experiment. “All I want to know is who did this to me,” I had said. And I remember, Reginald, too clearly how I remember the signature at the bottom of that infernal contract:

Reginald P. Caldwell, Esq.

I’m coming for you, Reginald. If you’re reading this, I already know which of your little hovels you thought you had hidden well enough from me. 

I can’t feel the hatred that I have for you, Reginald.   
But I remember. 

Yours,

Firinn Otel

(Letter found crumbled in the right hand of the deceased Mr. Caldwell. Suspect at large.)


End file.
